2001 Gandhi & King: A
Season for Nonviolence
A Season for Nonviolence, January 30 - April 4, is a national 64-day educational, media, and grassroots campaign dedicated to demonstrating that nonviolence is a powerful way to heal, transform, and empower our lives and our communities.Inspired by the 50th and 30th memorial anniversaries of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., this international event honors their vision for an empowered, nonviolent world.
Documents
A Season for Nonviolence Survey Summary
The Secretary-General of
the United Nations
Kofi Annan
Message to
the Launching of A Season of Nonviolence
New York,
30 January 1998
"Nonviolence is the first article of my faith. It is also the last article of my creed." Thus Mahatma Gandhi summed up his defense when charged with agitation against the State in 1922. Thus Gandhi himself embodied the movement we are here to celebrate today.
And this season of nonviolence, which we are launching here, sums up the continuing legacy of Mohandas Gandhi. I t sums up what I like to think of as the passing of the torch.
It is a moving fact that the two deaths whose anniversaries open and close this season occurred 50 and 30 years ago this year. Martin Luther King received the torch from Mahatma Gandhi, before his assassination in 1948, and held it high until his own three decades later.
The torch was carried by many hands. They included Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays, the principal of Morehouse College, who returned from India as one of the growing number of African-American disciples of Mahatma Gandhi. When Dr. King entered Morehouse at the age of 15, Mays became one of the great influences in his life. And there, the torch was passed on. It was kept burning by the civil rights movement here.
Who will carry it for future generations? Part of the answer can be found before us right here today.
Over the next 64 days, you will honour those who have championed non-violence as a way of life and struggle; you will bring together communities, groups and individuals who are making non-violent choices in meeting challenges; you will use media, education and dialogue to spread the message; you will light hundreds and thousands of new torches along the way.
This year also marks the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We in the United Nations will be using a strategy very like your own to bring home the message that human rights are the common language of humanity.
I believe that our two messages are voices that will speak in unison. I believe this is one of the best tributes we can pay to Mahatma Gandhi, and to those who followed him.
The torch is ours now to hold high. This is our way of ensuring that their deaths were not in vain. Let us begin; for we have many miles to go, and many torches still to light. Thank you.
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A Season for
Nonviolence Project Headquarters
Barbara Fields Bernstein,
Project Coordinator
Association for Global
New Thought
1514 Main St. #2
Evanston, IL
60202-6502
fax 847-866-9545
E-mail
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